Regardless of his intentions when making the migration from the states to Japan a few years back (apparently to learn the art of filmmaking) Jim O’Rourke just can’t seem to keep his little musical fingers still. Just in the past year the man has released collaborations with Oren Ambarchi & Keiji Haino, Lee Ranaldo & Christoph Heemann, and The Thing, and he’s got another collaboration with Heemann coming out this Tuesday called Plastic Palace People Vol. 1. As evidenced, O’Rourke possesses all the qualities of a childhood pet — he’s loyal, consistent, lovable, and plays well with others. Apologies if you didn’t have a childhood and can’t relate.

But those weren’t enough! Clear the “recent arrivals” bin, record store folks, because One Bird Two Bird will be released on March 11 via the always excellent, increasingly popular Editions Mego label. The disc features a 2009 Tokyo studio session between Masami Akita (a.k.a. Merzbow), Mats Gustafsson, and O’Rourke. If you’re not familiar with these dudes, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you to expect somethin’ brutal, cause that’s exactly what it’s gonna be.

Back in the early 2000s, when the terms freak folk, anti-folk, and psych folk actually kind of signified something, Alela Diane emerged from Nevada City with a friend like Joanna Newsom and a voice like a toned-down Diane Cluck singing Townes Van Zandt (evidenced most brazenly by the first track on her Myspace). Last June, we mused about her technological deficiencies, but we also hinted at a 2011 album. As will happen with the passage of time, the year is now 2011 and we have confirmation of said album, entitled Alela Diane & Wild Divine.

A real family affair, Diane’s third studio endeavor consists of herself (naturally, the “Alela Diane” half), plus her husband and father, both guitarists named Tom, and friends Jonas and Jason on bass and drums, respectively (together, Wild Divine). To sweeten the deal, Scott Litt (ahem — R.E.M. and Nirvana) produced the whole thing. Alela Diane & Wild Divine is out April 5 from Rough Trade. Just to assuage your fears about the craziness of this album, no animals were harmed during the production of this album.

In accordance with “Operation Save Our Children,” ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center seized thousands of domain names last week that they thought were questionable. “Thought” being the operative word here. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised to find the following banner in place of their sites:

Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution.

Pretty intense! Unfortunately, ICE didn’t pay close enough attention when they convinced a district court judge to sign a seizure warrant that prompted the domains in question to show the warning message instead of their usual content. Somewhere along the way, the domain mooo.com — which belongs to FreeDNS, a large DNS service provider — was seized and 84,000 subdomains were wrongfully seized as well. The owner of FreeDNS commented on the situation: “Freedns.afraid.org has never allowed this type of abuse of its DNS service. We are working to get the issue sorted as quickly as possible.” Several days after the seizure, the non-offending sites were reverted from the warning banners back to their old content. Hmm. Hey Department of Homeland Security, maybe double-check yourself the next time you try to flip the “off” switch on the internet, okay?

We all know The Fresh & Onlys are catchy, mostly-upbeat garage pop, and we unanimously agreed that last year’s Play It Strange was pretty great. These are the reasons for which you should prepare yourself, now, for the excitement about to brim over as you read: The Fresh & Onlys are going on tour this spring.

There, I said it! These guys are packing up and leaving San Francisco in March, with an inaugural date at Austin’s SXSW. And — get ready for this — they’re doing it to promote a mysterious new EP from Sacred Bones. There’s no information to be found anywhere about the EP, but maybe you can ask Tim Cohen in person when March and April come. Assuming there are no more major ice storms, political upheaval, natural disasters, or celebrity deaths, does spring get any better?

We’ve heard of rumors and hard times for a while, but today it’s official: Borders is filing for bankruptcy. Over the coming weeks, the store will close 200 of its locations (roughly 30% of stores nationwide), meaning… going-out-of-business sales on R. Kelly and Criterion DVDs? According to Billboard.biz, GE Capital and other corporations are giving $505 million to Borders in debtor-in-possession financing.

It’s easy to bash the supposed “big guys” in support of independent shops (both for books and music), but when you get down to it, that’s a lot of unemployed workers — not to mention the important question: where will small-town kids buy CDs now that their one local media outlet has closed? (Let’s face it, not everyone lives near an Amoeba.) The moral of the story: down with Kindle and Amazon!

Like the robin that signals the beginning of spring, Beach Fossils’ announcement of their upcoming EP for Captured Tracks must surely be one of this crazy world’s best harbingers of summer fun. Technically, said new EP comes out in March, which isn’t really summer unless you live in some magical, perpetually warm place like say, the Bahamas or Mexico, or maybe if you’re one of those weird sophomore dudes who wears shorts even in December and seem to infest college campuses across the Midwest. Whatever. Because, come March 8, when Captured Tracks releases What a Pleasure, it won’t matter that summer is like three months away. Tossing a beach ball! Roastin’ weenies! Being grossed out at dead fish on the beach! Those are the sights you’ll envision once Beach Fossils have their way with your ears.

You can catch Beach Fossils main dudes Dustin Payseur and John Peña at SXSW this spring. Fun fact: the CD EP contains one more track than the fancy vinyl EP.

What a Pleasure 12-inch tracklisting:

01. Moments
02. What a Pleasure
03. Fall Right In
04. Out in the Way (feat. Jack Tatum)
05. Distance
06. Calyer
07. Adversity

What a Pleasure CD tracklisting:

01. Moments
02. What a Pleasure
03. Fall Right In
04. Out in the Way (feat. Jack Tatum)
05. Face It
06. Distance
07. Calyer
08. Adversity